The 10km time trial certainly left me depleted, the weather heat-up dehydrated me, and a front-loaded week drained me. I had hoped to get the hard workouts out of the way to be better rested for the half-marathon. I was essentially trying to make wine from raisins. I took a good lesson from this. First, a 10km effort takes more time to recover from than a simple 5km race does so coming back with the three hardest days of the week all in a row is a horrible idea. The half-marathon ended up not going as well as I had planned. This brought two more lessons. The first is to listen to the training plan. The prescribed race distances are such to fit with the challenging aspect of the plan, so I should not have shot over them by more than 5 miles. Second, racing a half-marathon just six days after a 10km is not the brightest idea nor is trying to race it on a high-mileage week.
So, after taxing my body with a record-shattering 10km performance and several hard sessions in a row, I should have anticipated a rough half-marathon. Yes, the weather that day impacted it too, but ultimately I should have been able to respond a little better. Then, the half-marathon wiped me out even further. A common rule of thumb is a day of recovery for every mile raced. Instead of getting out of the rough week feeling ready to take on the next week, I instead had set myself up for a second horrible week of training.
In fact, I modified this week quite a bit. First, I cut a 6+4 recovery day down to 7 due to the previous Saturday’s double. I lost the second run on my 15-mile day as well as two miles on my track workout day. I think that 4-miler may have been the first run of the 18-week program that I have missed (but I have done a couple extra runs too). I did go an extra mile Saturday, but was still 8 miles short of where I should have been for the week.
Next week is my last big mileage week capped off by a 5k race that I have been looking forward to with much excitement. Hopefully, it goes well. It will be 14 days after my 13-mile race, so I may finally be recovered. If it were tomorrow, I know that it would go badly. Instead, I’m starting my week off with a 22-mile long run.
Here is my training for the past week.
I opened up the week following a half-marathon race and a total of 26 miles the day before. I was schedule to run an 18-mile long run. The first six miles were warm-up, cool-down, and pacing of a partial track workout prior to the indoor state meet. I ran an 800 in 2:33, 400 in 1:15, and a couple 200s in about 34 seconds each and jogged 400 meters in between each. In all, the six miles averaged about 7:20 pace. Then, I continued for the additional 12 miles. They were a grind at times, but it was 80 degrees outside coupled with a 25mph South wind. I was glad to get it over with. Total: 18 miles – 2:07:11 (7:04 pace)
On Monday, I put in a 7-mile recovery run out past Sawyer Elementary. It went well and had nothing exciting to report. Total: 7 miles – 53:21 (7:37 pace)
The following day was the State Indoor Track Meet, which meant an entire day in Cedar Falls. I woke up at 5:30 AM to begin the first of two scheduled runs for the day. I was supposed to do a 15-mile long run and a 4-mile recovery run. Just a third of the way through the 15-miler, I was shot. The lack of sleep and the quick turnaround after Saturday/Sunday just made it too difficult for me that day. I made the choice to flip-flop with Wednesday, which was an aerobic 8-miler with 10x100 strides. The strides actually woke me up a bit and made me consider finishing the 15 miles. At that point, though, I was concerned about getting to school on time, so I scrapped the idea. Total: 8 miles – 55:36 (6:57 pace)
I spent much of Wednesday worrying about if I was recovered yet or not. I still felt dog-tired. I actually had a cup of coffee at lunch to make it through the day. But, after practice, I headed out for the 15-miler. It actually went incredibly well and I challenged myself to run the last two miles over hills and also to make them my fastest two miles of the run. I was successful with both and this became my first run in a week that went well that was not recovery. Total: 15 miles – 1:38:58 (6:36 pace)
Because I had switched days, that meant I had a second hard day following the 15-miler. I suppose this was ok since I missed out on the two-a-day, but it also meant it was going to get challenging. I was scheduled for a track workout of 6x1200m at race pace for 5 km. I ended up running these at the Gilbert track because there was soccer practice on the Ames field. I have run at Gilbert many times, but this will be the last. After frequenting Ames’ track, I now realize how hard and lousy the Gilbert surface is. Anyhow, I got pinched for time due to the parents’ meeting for the track team and had to cut my workout down. I ended up running 3x1200 and 3x800 plus less warm-up and cool down than I had planned. My times for the 1200s were 3:49, 3:52, 3:57 (goal was 3:52). For the 800s, I ran 2:38, 2:33, 2:32 (goal was 2:34). Total: 10 miles – 1:05:32 (6:33 pace)
The next day was another 8-mile aerobic paced run. I ran this one on the high school bike path out to 13th Street and collected several hills on the run out to the interstate highway and back. It went very well and felt incredibly comfortable. Total: 8 miles – 56:51 (7:06 pace)
I ended the week by running a 7-mile recovery run, which included hill repeats in the neighborhoods near my home. The walking path is quite steep, which made for some strong efforts to get my knees up and run well. Total: 7 miles – 53:16 (7:37 pace)
For the week (Sun-Sat), I hit 73 miles in 8:30:45 or 6:59/mile.
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